


The Magic Of Friendship

by BabyStepsAreStillSteps



Series: The Beginning of the (Fri)end [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur at one point was delusional enough to believe he actually had any control over the situation, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Merlin is a Little Shit, Merlin refuses to learn, Mordred gets his wish, Mordred informs him, Not Anymore, That point has long since passed, and not tease poor innocent druid friends, and some days wishes he didn't, but he is an adorable bean, that doesn't seem to realize Emrys is supposed to be dignified and refined, the knights are along for the ride
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-22 04:34:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30033108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabyStepsAreStillSteps/pseuds/BabyStepsAreStillSteps
Summary: Merlin had thought he didn’t know what he was getting into when he cleared the air and agreed to stop hating Mordred, but it turned out theknight, not the warlock, was the one who was completely unprepared for what it would mean to be considered Merlin’s friend.
Relationships: Knights of the Round Table & Merlin (Merlin), Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Merlin & Mordred (Merlin)
Series: The Beginning of the (Fri)end [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2211078
Comments: 24
Kudos: 107





	1. Off On A Hero's Journey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Summer_Meadows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Summer_Meadows/gifts).



> This exists because my baby sister, Summer_Meadows, is the absolute worst.
> 
> I said, 'I'm done with 'Out of sight, Out of Mind'', and she said, 'No, you're not'.
> 
> I said, 'Yes, I am, that's the end,' and she said, 'What? No, I want to hear about Merlin and Mordred being friends.'
> 
> I said, 'That's rough, because I'm not writing about them being friends', and she said, 'Pleeeeeeeaaaaase?', so I stood my ground and have written about them being friends.
> 
> Summer_Meadows is the worst, and she uses her cuteness powers for evil without shame or remorse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story will make more sense if you read 'Out of Sight, Out of Mind' first, but it is probably understandable without that preface. The main thing to know from the original is that Mordred has sworn an unbreakable vow to Merlin that he will not kill Arthur, so Merlin has decided he can let himself be friends with Mordred. 
> 
> As in 'Out of Sight, Out of Mind', the chapter titles will come from the names of the songs from the show 'Galavant'. The song itself doesn't necessarily have the same 'plot' as the chapter, its just that the name of it works for my title. 
> 
> If you haven't seen Galavant, I *highly* recommend it. It’s a two season tv show about a knight’s adventure set in the middle ages, and it’s half comedy, half an adventure show with lots of singing. My sister got me into it because the man who plays Detective Lassiter in Psych and Cain in Supernatural plays a main character, and he’s hilarious.
> 
> Also, as a side note, a single apostrophe will be used to denote Merlin and Mordred's mental communication, while regular quote marks mean talking. So, 'this would be a mental message,' and "this would be a spoken one."

“Ah, Merlin, good. You’re even on time for once,” Arthur greeted when Merlin walked into the king’s chambers without knocking, swinging the bag off his back and setting it at his feet as he stood before his master.

Merlin rolled his eyes at Arthur, but didn’t respond, flashing a quick wave of greeting to the other knights in the room before refocusing on Arthur.

“The patrol will be going by Wexert,” Arthur started, “and Gaius informed me he needed some sort of ingredients from the physician there, and you would make the journey to retrieve them. He has assured me your leg is up to the journey, is that true?”

“Yeah,” Merlin reassured. “It’s almost completely better, it will be fine, but he packed medical supplies just in case.”

“Good,” Arthur said firmly. “He also had something to say about checking the ingredients, have you been informed on what you must do?”

“Yep,” Merlin nodded confidently, and Arthur nodded, accepting his word.

“There’s a patrol scheduled to go out that way anyway, so you’ll accompany them to ensure you don’t trip off a cliff or get attacked by bandits or something. It will not be very long, only three days, are you packed and ready?”

Merlin nodded, patting the bag and sleep roll he had leaned against his leg.

“Alright,” Arthur nodded his approval. “The knights accompanying you will be Leon, Percival, Elyan, Gwaine, and ... and Mordred.”

“Ok,” Merlin nodded with a sunny smile.

The other stared at him in blatant shock, Mordred trying -and failing- to hide a grin as he took in the reactions.

"Really?" Arthur asked, speaking what the rest of the knights were clearly thinking. "No protest? The last time I told you Mordred was accompanying a patrol you were on, you told me that wouldn't be necessary."

Mordred let out a strangled cough that was clearly originally a laugh, but no one commented, still staring at Merlin as if trying to decide if he were sick.

'Really?' Mordred asked over their mental connection, sounding bemused.

Merlin quirked a nonchalant grin and shrugged a casual shoulder.

"Last time it wasn't," he explained simply, clasping his hands behind his back as he waited for Arthur's response.

'Ok, in my defense, I used to hate you,' Merlin defended playfully to Mordred, not looking away from his king as Mordred let out another strangled laugh thinly veiled as a cough.

'I don't think you understand how the phrase 'in my defense' is supposed to be used, Emrys,' Mordred told him wryly, and Merlin sent him the mental link equivalent of an unbothered shrug.

"... Alright," Arthur eventually said, sounding extremely unsure as he studied his unbothered servant waiting patiently before him. "Well... um -, ok. Then... then I suppose you all should get going, you're losing daylight."

"Ok," Merlin agreed brightly, bending to pick up his bag and politely pretending not to see Arthur attempt subtly in gesturing for the non-Mordred knights to stay behind.

Merlin swung the bag over his shoulders, shooting Arthur another smile as he waved goodbye.

"Alright, see you in three days, prat," he announced, turning to the door, waiting for Mordred to fall into step beside him, and pushing down a laugh at the king and knights’ shocked faces he could see reflected in the mirror by Arthur's cabinet. "Have fun with George!"

Arthur waved the knights over as Merlin and Mordred rounded the doorframe, both pausing just outside with barely suppressed amusement as they strained to hear what Arthur would say.

"Will you make sure he's not...," Arthur trailed off, apparently at a loss for even a guess as to what had happened. "Make sure he's ok," he settled on, and Merlin shared a smirk with Mordred, who clamped a hand to his mouth to stifle his laughter, though his eyes danced brightly with his mirth.

"Uh, yeah," Gwaine said after a delay, sounding just as bewildered as Arthur, and Merlin clenched his jaw shut to silence the laughter bubbling up, able to clearly picture the face of utter confusion Gwaine was surely making.

"We... we will, sire," Leon said, even his normal formality sounding stilted and awkward as he tried to understand what had caused Merlin's sudden shift in attitude.

"... Well, alright," Arthur said a long moment later, and Merlin nodded to Mordred that it was their cue to continue down the hall so they weren't caught eavesdropping. "I guess... um, well, you have your orders...," and they distantly heard the sounds of the knights collecting their bags before they made it to the staircase and hurried down to the front door of the castle.

~*~…~*~…~*~…~*~…~*~

Merlin and Mordred had already pulled all of the horses out of the stable and tied them to the hitching posts, collecting saddles and bridles and laying them on the nearby fence posts, by the time the knights arrived.

"Hey, prats," Merlin greeted, laying the saddle pad over his horse's back and returning to the fence to get his saddle. "About time you got here, you get lost?"

His comment didn't spark the round of bantering responses it usually would have, as the knights were still watching him warily, as if afraid at any moment he would either keel over in a dead faint or reveal he was merely a person who _looked_ like Merlin, but was actually a traitor trying to infiltrate Camelot.

"Thanks for bringing our tack out," Gwaine said cautiously, and Merlin pretended not to notice the scrutiny he was under.

"No problem," Merlin grinned. "Mordred did most of the work," he acknowledged with a nod in the knight's direction, and the other knights froze mid-motion of brushing down their horses.

"... oh, um-, thank you as well, Mordred," Elyan said, halting and confused.

"You're welcome!" Mordred chirped, not acknowledging the obvious confusion all around him. "It was Merlin's idea."

Merlin cast him a fond smile, and the knights seemed to be nearing a collective mental break.

"You ...," Gwaine started, watching the pair cheerfully move through the motions of saddling their horses with an air of a man witnessing his impending doom but not quite comprehending it. "You seem to be.... getting along now?" he finished, more of a question in his voice than he had probably intended.

“Oh, yeah,” Merlin smiled, tone casual and unconcerned, as if addressing the weather and not his abrupt departure from openly despising Mordred that he hadn’t been shy about displaying for the past several months. “We decided we’re friends now.”

Mordred’s face twitched, trying to shove down how funny he found the situation, and he nodded along with an air of flippant casualness.

The knights stared in open mouthed disbelief.

Merlin and Mordred shoved down smirks and continued tacking the horses.

“Here, Mordred,” Merlin said, handing him his horse’s girth with pointed friendliness.

Mordred accepted it with a bright thanks, turning quickly to hide the smile that exploded across his face, but he stopped his shoulders from shaking with his suppressed laughter, so Merlin still considered it a success.

“Did you lot forget how to tack up a horse?” Merlin asked, arching an unimpressed eyebrow at them when they continued to stare at him and Mordred in confusion. “‘Cause I’ll teach you, but I’m not doing it for you. You lot have to do it or you’ll get spoiled, I’m not _your_ servant.”

The men reluctantly pushed themselves into motion, tacking their horses with delayed, stilted movements as they continued sending Mordred and Merlin bewildered looks.

"Good job with the new saddle," Merlin congratulated Mordred, managing to keep a straight face as he patted the knight’s shoulder when he walked by. “You even remembered the extra strap, well done.”

Mordred turned back to his horse to hide his beaming smile with a sincere, “Thanks, Merlin.”

The knights all froze again, watching Merlin with horrified expressions, and he could almost hear them wondering if he had been enchanted.

He shoved down another grin. Messing with them was an opportunity he never passed up.

Pretending not to notice the attention, he meandered through his duties, finally prodding the knights back into tacking when it was clear they wouldn’t be breaking out of their stunned stillness on their own.

He eventually managed to corral all of them through tacking their horses and mounting, spurring his mount into motion with Mordred right beside him, the others following by habit more than a conscious decision.

‘I think Gwaine’s mouth is still hanging open,’ Mordred’s voice said in Merlin’s head, giddy with amusement that he visibly struggled to keep off his face.

‘I bet,’ Merlin sent back, barely stopping himself from nodding along with his agreement. ‘He was one of the strongest supporters of the ‘let’s make Merlin like Mordred’ campaign the knights have been running lately.’

Merlin felt the echo of Mordred’s amusement and replied with his own, the group riding in a comfortable silence as they left the citadel and slowed their horses to a sedate walk as they wandered into the forest.

“So,” Gwaine said, breaking the silence, but apparently not quite knowing where to go from there.

Merlin glanced back at him, slowing his horse so that the group rode in more of one wide line, making it easier to talk to everyone without trying to twist in the saddle.

Gwaine looked hopefully at Merlin to answer the unspoken questions, but Merlin merely arched an eyebrow with a curious expression, and Gwaine’s shoulders slumped.

“So, we see that you two _are_ getting along now, but we were wondering...,” Gwaine trailed off again, glancing at the other knights for support, who gave him encouraging nods but no verbal help.

Oh.

Huh.

Somehow, in all the excitement of imagining how confused the knights would be by the development, he had failed to realize they would surely be asking _why_ Merlin finally accepted Mordred.

Huh.

‘Emerys, what do we tell them?’ Mordred demanded frantically. ‘You didn’t tell them about the prophecy, right?’

“We were wondering...,” Gwaine shot Leon a pointed look, but the first knight looked intentionally away, studying the leaves of the trees overhead with an unrelenting fascination he had never displayed before.

Gwaine glared at him, thankfully taking the attention off the wide-eyed, nearly hyperventilating Mordred.

‘Calm down,’ Merlin instructed, keeping his face impassive while Gwaine worked up the courage to ask what he wanted to know. ‘Of course I didn’t. We’ll figure something out, just give me a second.’

“We... well, Merlin, we... we wanted to know... well, to know _why_ you’ve suddenly decided you don’t hate Mordred,” Gwaine finally finished.

Merlin looked at him, pursing his lips.

‘Unless you’ve thought of something better, tell him I was jealous,’ he instructed Mordred, not waiting for a response before he said, “We just cleared the air is all, and have decided we’re better friends than enemies,” he sniffed, striving -and purposefully failing- for casually unaffected.

“And what air needed clearing?” Elyan asked, bemused, as he watched Merlin’s pointedly unconcerned expression.

“None of your business,” Merlin informed him at the same time Mordred blurted out, “He was jealous!”

Merlin waited a beat for stunned silence before he leaned around the other knights to glare at Mordred.

“Mordred!” he scolded, tone betrayed, and Mordred sent him a wide-eyed, innocent look.

“Sorry?” he offered meekly, and Merlin scowled.

“You were jealous?” Gwaine asked, sounding delighted.

“No,” Merlin refuted, staring straight ahead and refusing to look at the knights he could see grinning widely at him in his peripheral vision.

“I mean, no, he wasn’t,” Mordred added earnestly. “We cleared other air. Other air that was about...,” he visibly struggled for another reason, “about things we’re not going to talk about,” he finished with a satisfied nod, looking proud of himself.

Merlin’s lips twitched up in amusement, wondering how he had ever hated him.

“About things we’re not going to talk about,” Merlin agreed firmly, casting a look at the knights that dared them to press the issue.

The knights had never listened to reason before, and they certainly weren’t going to start when such a perfect opportunity to tease Merlin had arisen.

“You were _jealous_ ,” Elyan asked in gleeful insistence.

“No,” Merlin said firmly again.

“What, did you think there was only room in our group for one cheerful, excited brunette who smiles all the time and is unfortunately endearing?” Elyan asked, smirking at the manservant who was pointedly unimpressed with the question.

Merlin rolled his eyes dramatically while the other knights laughed.

“You know,” Leon said thoughtfully, “there actually are several similarities between you two, aren’t there?”

“No,” Merlin said definitively, but the smiles on the knights’ faces only grew.

“They’re both little, and cute, and innocent,” Gwaine said, a note of unmistakable teasing in his voice, and Merlin scowled at him.

“I am none of those things,” he informed Gwaine, unimpressed.

“You are all of those things,” Percival said, not bothering to hide how hilarious he found the situation, and Merlin transferred his glower to him instead.

“You are both impossibly energetic in the mornings,” Elyan added with mock helpfulness, and Merlin rolled his eyes dramatically.

“You both have an air of innocence, but an undeniable competence,” Leon added, grinning when Merlin opened his mouth to argue, and then shut it again, unsure of how to articulate his protest.

“And you’re both incredibly brave,” Elyan noted, tapping his chin thoughtfully with a faux expression of deep thought.

“And clever,” Percival added.

Merlin glared at all of them, not that any of them showed any remorse, grinning brightly at him instead of being chastised.

“So, which of those was the problem?” Gwaine asked in pseudo sincerity.

“I just ...,” Merlin studied his reins instead of looking at any of the other knights, surprised to find a kernel of truth in his next words. “I had thought that... that you all were avoiding me, and the only times you lot talked to me it was to tell me about how great Mordred was and all the time you were spending with him, and...,” he trailed off, shrugging and looking out toward the trees they were passing.

‘I’m sorry, Emrys,’ Mordred whispered in his head.

‘It’s not your fault,’ Merlin told him, sending a reassuring pulse to the younger man.

“I was being stupid,” Merlin finished, still unable to look any of the knights in the eye.

“Merlin, that’s not stupid,” Gwaine told him in a heartbroken voice, his earlier teasing gone.

Merlin shrugged, internally begging for a topic change.

“We should play a game,” Percival suggested, immediately securing everyone’s attention. “A game called ‘Everyone makes sure Merlin knows we like him’.”

Merlin was so shocked that the suggestion came from _Percival_ that it took him precious seconds to start mounting his arguments, and by the time he had, the other knights had already whole heartedly accepted the idea as their new mission.

“That’s really not necessary,” Merlin tried to argue, only to be cut off by Gwaine.

“Oh, yes it is,” Gwaine said, grinning widely. “I’ll start. Merlin, did you know you’re my best friend and my favorite person in the world?”

Merlin immediately flushed red, and his eyes dropped to Gwaine’s shoulder of their own accord.

“Oh, um, thanks,” he tried to accept, calm and unaffected, and definitively missing the mark.

The knights laughed, warm and fond, which did not help his blush or his ability to look any of them in the eye.

“Good start,” Leon told Gwaine with an approving nod, then turned to the blushing servant. “Merlin, I love talking to you, especially on long trail rides. You have such a way of seeing the world and seeing other people that it inspires me to try to be better.”

Merlin flushed even brighter, trying to sink into his saddle and out of sight.

“Thank you, Leon,” he said quietly, equally as touched as he was embarrassed.

“Merlin,” Elyan said, smile clear in his voice even though Merlin couldn’t make himself bring his eyes up to look. “Polishing my armor is my favorite part of my day because of our talks, which is especially impressive considering I used to hate the chore.”

They wouldn’t need a campfire for the night, the heat from Merlin’s cheeks would be more than enough to keep everyone warm through the night, as he was quite certain he would still be blushing when they stopped to make camp and well into the next morning.

“Thanks, Elyan,” he whispered.

“Merlin,” Percival started before Merlin cut him off, finally able to drag his wide eyes up to meet Percival’s.

“Please don’t,” he said, openly begging, and Percival quirked an amused smile, but went on.

“Merlin,” he said, as if he hadn’t been interrupted, “after watching the effect you have on people for more than a year now, I’ve realized that with every interaction you find good in others, and when it’s not there, you create it.”

Merlin may very well die from the sheer force of his embarrassment, he decided, ducking his head and feeling his face flame even brighter.

“That’s not true,” he argued to his reins, sure he had to be blushing all the way down to his toes by now, “but thank you, Percival.”

“It is,” Percival assured him, affectionate and amused, and Merlin opened his mouth to protest, but Gwaine was already spouting off the next compliment.

It was going to be a very long ride

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, I'd love to hear what you think!


	2. Let's Agree To Disagree

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for the kudos and the amazingly kind comments, I LOVE THEM!

‘The man looks like a jam tart,’ Merlin’s voice informed him from inside his head, and Mordred only barely managed to turn his surprised laughter into a cough, hiding his face in his elbow as he got himself under control.

He stood amidst the other knights in a respectful line beside Arthur as the king greeted the visiting lord, Merlin standing quietly at his shoulder, eyes lowered in deference and showing absolutely no sign he was peppering Mordred with insulting commentary on the incoming visitors.

‘You are the absolute _worst_ ,’ he informed Merlin, trying to keep the scowl off his face when he saw Merlin’s lips twitch slightly as he shoved down an unrepentant smirk.

‘At what?’ Merlin asked in mock confusion.

Mordred couldn’t help himself and he shot Merlin a quick glare, ignoring the other knights’ confusion before he wiped the expression off his face and turned back to the preceding.

‘Everything,’ he grumbled in annoyance, sending a pulse of fond irritation at the warlock when Merlin sent a feeling of amusement down their connection.

Mordred tried to push it aside, nervous over his new duties to the court and expectations as a knight.

He had never greeted a visiting noble before, and he had been warned that the visiting lord was kind enough, but high strung and easily offended.

Arthur had pulled the knights aside and coached them on how to pronounce the man’s name, apparently the last time he had visited, a knight had mispronounced it and caused an incident that almost led to the lord refusing to sign the peace treaty renewal he had visited for.

Mordred stood, trying not to fidget, and doing his best to shove down the rising anxiety as the lord finally climbed the steps to where Arthur was waiting to greet him.

Merlin wasn’t wrong, the man did indeed resemble a jam tart. He was wearing a long, pretentious cape and a fine tunic and trousers, but they were all an odd beige color.

They were clearly expensive, velvet and silk respectively, but there was no denying that the color matched the pastry crusts the kitchens made, and the expanse of beige was only broken by a large splash of bright red color centered in the lord’s chest, stretching in an oval almost all the way down to the bottom of his tunic.

“Arthur!” The man greeted when he was close enough, smiling brightly and sounding genuinely happy to see him again.

Arthur’s smile echoed the lord’s, though not as bright and genuine, and Mordred knew via Merlin that Arthur enjoyed the man’s company in small doses, but it was difficult to keep him from being offended if hosting him for longer than a day, and Mordred was already more than aware of Arthur’s lack of skill in tact and sensitivity.

“I’m glad you could visit,” Arthur returned without verbalizing the man’s name as Mordred had hoped he would.

Mordred had paid close attention to the lesson of the previous night, but as he stood watching the proceedings, he found his memory had been muddied by Gwaine, Merlin, and Elyan’s continued purposefully ridiculous mispronunciations in an ongoing -and successful- attempt to rile up Arthur.

“I’m always happy to come to your beautiful castle, my liege,” the man proclaimed, sincere, but more than a touch grandiose.

‘Yeah, to return to the kitchen tart tray to be with his brethren,’ Merlin told Mordred with mock seriousness, face completely blank and deferent, and Mordred’s teeth clamped down on his cheek to stop himself from laughing, barely managing to keep his face blank.

‘Why are you _the worst_?’ he demanded, his tone reprimanding and irritated, not that it had any effect on the unrepentant manservant.

‘You were the one that wanted to be friends,’ Merlin reminded him with an air of faux innocence, and Mordred could almost see the impish smile he knew Merlin was suppressing.

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Mordred informed him sourly. ‘Please go back to hating me, Emrys.’

Merlin’s face spasmed for an instant, shoving down his surprised hilarity, and he ducked his head in a servant’s deference to hide any further slips.

Mordred was somehow even more annoyed.

He couldn’t do that, he was a knight. He was expected to keep his eyes up and face confident, though not to a disrespectful level. There had been a more than two hour lecture on the proper stance of a knight greeting a visiting noble, and nowhere in it had Arthur allowed bursting out into laughter.

Mordred shoved Merlin’s amusement back down the link it came from with a healthy dose of annoyance from himself, but he didn’t really think the man would be turning contrite anytime soon.

‘Why would I hate you?’ Merlin asked facetiously, confirming Mordred’s suspicions. ‘You’re not trying to kill Arthur anymore, I’m free to be friends with you.’

Mordred did his best to try to convey a scowl down a mental link, trying to keep half an ear on the conversation the lord and Arthur were having while also keeping track of his own expression and ensuring it stayed one of respectful greeting.

‘Yes, I am,’ Mordred informed him bluntly. ‘I’m going to kill Arthur sometime while the lord is here, you have to go back to hating me until he leaves.’

Mordred heard Merlin’s bright laugh echo through his head, and some of his irritation reluctantly rolled away despite his best efforts, reveling for what felt like the hundredth time in the joy of having Merlin as a friend.

“ - Sir Mordred,” Arthur announced, sweeping a hand toward him, abruptly jarring him back to the scene in front of him.

Mordred’s eyes widened for a second before he clamped down on his panic and schooled his expression just in time for the visiting jam tart lord to stop in front of him with a friendly expression his face.

“It is good to meet you, Sir Mordred,” he greeted in a seemingly genuine tone. “Congratulations on the honor of joining the ranks of the finest knights in the land.”

“Thank you, Lord -,” Mordred paused, realizing with mounting panic he had truly forgotten how to pronounce the man’s name.

‘Grey-tea-pole,’ Merlin’s voice enunciated in his head.

“- Graetiepul,” he finished with a smile, and the lord gave a nod of surprised approval at the correct pronunciation.

‘Thank you, Emerys,’ he thought fervently to Merlin. ‘We can be friends again.’

Mordred felt the warlock send a pulse of warm fondness through their mental link, and Mordred’s shoulders relaxed at the reassurance that he had help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately I'm anticipating some overtime coming up at work in the next few weeks, so I'm not sure how consistent I'll be with updating, but I'll get the new chapters up as soon as I have them edited. Thanks for reading!


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